Life is like chocolate

First, I have to brag about my son for a minute.
Today he came home with one of these in his backpack:

Joe asked his teacher why Joey had a whole candy bar in his backpack. Apparently, it was as a reward because yesterday he was one of only two kids who were obeying and sitting where the teachers were telling them to during school. The teachers wanted to reward the two boys who obeyed. You can bet we praised Joey for that one. (And, he shared his candy bar with Kylah!)

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Labor Day weekend we got to see two of Joe's brothers, Jeff and James. Joey and Kylah were so excited to see their uncles. Even Kylah ran right up to both of them and gave hugs and kisses!

Here are the kids with Uncle James.

And here they are with Uncle Jeff and his girlfriend Carissa. The kids loved Carissa and the fact that she sat and read them books.

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This past weekend, Joe had his 5th annual Golf Extravaganza with a group of his college friends. They went to Dallas this year.
That meant that I had three days and nights alone with the kids to keep them happy and me sane. :) Actually, it really wasn't that bad. We spent a lot of the time with Mere and her kids.
On Friday during the day we went to an airplane museum. It was a little bit too old for the kids, but we managed to keep them occupied there for a while. They were in awe of all the big planes, but they were hoping to be able to climb on the airplanes.

Matty is always such a little trooper. He really rarely cries, but I caught him crying here and thought it was so cute!

Matty, Audrey, Kylah, Connor and Joey standing by a Navy plane.

OK, we broke the rules a little bit here. We were the only ones at the museum besides two other workers who were no where to be found at this moment. We checked out this Army jeep and found it to be sturdy enough to be climbed on for a few minutes. Don't tell anyone! :) We actually saw some security cameras, so I'm sure whoever was watching those later got a kick out of us breaking the rules.

This old man is/was a pilot. It was actually quite interesting to talk to him, and he kept the boys' attention better than we could the whole time we were there. He has to be about 80 some years old, but he says he still parachutes out of planes on a regular basis. How fun is that?!

Connor and Joey giving us their 'fierce' soldier looks.

The kids and I actually spent the night at Mere's house so the kids could have a sleepover. They all did great, but were up quite early on Saturday!

We introduced Connor and Audrey to a Saturday morning Manthe breakfast of biscuits and gravy---at Joey's request. They both did great with it.

Connor had his first soccer game that morning, so we all headed out to that.
Joey can't wait until he's 5 so he can play (much to Joe's chagrin!) :)

The cheering section.

Joey congratulating Connor at the end of his game.

And then Joey tries to pick up Connor! Joey did a great job of cheering Connor on, and not being upset that he didn't get to play in the game.

I love this picture. I especially love Kylah's little tennis outfit (thanks Uncle T and Aunt Gina for that!)

After the game my kids were both exhausted. Kylah skipped lunch in favor of going straight to bed. My little girl is not one to skip meals, so she must have been quite tired! We all had good naps and were refreshed for the night.

Mere and the kids came to our house for supper that night.

The kids had fun forming cookie dough to bake after supper. Sometimes it is so fun to just let them go at it with no direction and let them have fun. I don't even want to know how many of those cookies were actually licked before being put on the tray. :)

Girls after their momma's hearts! We are definitely passing down our love of all things sweet! :)

Joe made it home safe and sound. We were all glad to have him home with us. Boy am I glad I don't have a husband who travels all the time for work. I don't know how those moms/wives do it all the time!

Apparently...

Sorry, no pictures today. This will have to suffice until I can post about our fun weekend with Mere and her kids while the boys were away at their annual golf weekend in Dallas.

These are some funny things that Joey has said lately. He is getting so grown up!

Last night on the way home from a volleyball game, he looks at the moon, and then says to me, "Mommy, the moon is a crescent shape." Hmmm...I have no clue how he knows what a crescent is. I didn't teach him that, but good to know he's learning something at school!

He used apparently in a sentence last night. I wish I could remember the exact sentence, but Joe and I just looked at each other and said, 'did he just say apparently???' Apparently, I say apparently quite a bit. :)

The other day he took a drink of water, pulled his cup away and said, "Refreshing!"

This kid cracks me up!

Kylah loves to just say whatever she hears us or her big brother say. She likes to use the word actually. Apparently, I also say actually a lot too! :)

She also still loves the word, NO. We are really working on saying, 'no thank you' when appropriate, and saying 'Yes Sir' and 'Yes Ma'am' (aka NEVER saying NO to mommy and daddy), but this little one can be a stubborn little thing! Don't worry, mommy and daddy will prevail eventually!

Catch up

Ok, ok, I know...it's been way too long since I've blogged. In my defense, well, nope, I really don't have a good reason.

Anyway, my mom came to visit us last weekend. As always, it was great, but seemed way too short. The kids soak up all her attention while she is here. Joey already wants to know when she's coming back! Thanks for sending her to us, dad!
Kylah's first words when she saw her Gramma in the morning after she came was, 'where's Papa?' That little girl loves her Papa! :)

Gramma is full of energy and plays non-stop with the kids. (I love it because I get a nice break!)

Here is Gramma and Joey playing launch the rocket from Gramma's lap onto the air mattress.
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

BLAST OFF! (And yes, Joey's in his underwear. He's stay in just underwear all day everyday if I would let him!)

Kylah's turn!

This guy has gotten to be pretty funny lately. I love this face!

I didn't take many pictures of the weekend, but we had a blast!

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The weather has finally cooled off a little around here, so we've actually been able to be outside a little bit without melting.
For some reason, Joey and Kylah had to have their hats on and wanted me to take their picture.

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This morning I thought the kids were looking especially cute in their church clothes. As usual, Joey asked for a tie, and then asked for his vest, so I obliged. Besides, he looks so handsome, I can't resist! :)

Love this one!

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In other fun news, I felt the baby move for the first time tonight! Yay! I love that part of being pregnant. And now that I am over the morning (ALL DAY) sickness, I am feeling a little more optimistic these days! :)

I am 17 weeks along today. We decided we are going to go ahead and find out the sex of this baby, so we'll know that in about 3 weeks. We'll keep you all posted!

rough day

So, normally, Kylah gets great reports home from her little preschool. However, today I guess she had a little bit of a rough day, well a rough nap time.

Here's the bottom of her note home from school today.
In case you can't read the writing, in the middle of the paragraph from the teacher it says, 'Had a little trouble at nap time staying on her mat.' And notice in the upper left hand corner where they usually put the times they slept for nap it says 'NONE'. (Usually she's sleep for 1-1.5 hours.)

Needless to say, when the kids walked in the door with Joe, Kylah was crying, and she had to go straight to her room. She got quite the talking to from daddy, and a warning of repercussions to come if she doesn't obey her teachers at school again.

Joey wasn't exactly excited that Kylah was in trouble, but he wasn't too sad either. I think he's secretly happy that there's someone else old enough to get in trouble like him!

While Joe was in the room talking to Kylah, Joey asked me if he could have a piece of paper to draw a picture.

I put labels on his picture, exactly as he told me what everything was. "There's Kylah, and she's crying because she got in trouble because she wouldn't stay on her mat. And there's her teachers; they are sad because she didn't obey." Bless his little heart! :)

Thanks to her no-nap day, Kylah went to bed a little earlier than normal tonight. :)
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On a better day, here's Kylah practicing for her new little sibling. She was pretty good about changing her baby's diaper. She's got the changing pad, the wipes, and she even lifted the legs up just right to wipe!

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I often find that my kids like to pretend that they are "reading" like mommy. (That means pretending to read one of my big books.) I secretly love it, because I'm hoping they are both going to be readers.

So when Joey asked if he could come 'read' with me on the couch tonight, I was more than happy to let him!

Sleepovers and tea parties

Joey and Kylah had Connor and Audrey over for a sleepover last weekend. They were all so excited to actually get to sleep in the same rooms all night. (Usually when we hang out with Dave and Mere we'll put the kids to bed at the house we're at and then wake them up to take them home.)
Since Kylah is in her big girl bed now, Audrey got to sleep in her room! They were so excited, but I don't think they even talked much!

We took all four kids out to eat and then bowling. Bowling was quite the commotion with four little ones, but so much fun to watch.

Joey watching his ball go down the lane.

Connor put quite the spin on his.

Look how old Kylah looks standing there!

Sweet Audrey. We loved it when Audrey bowled because it took forever for her ball to actually make it down to the pins. Her ball actually stopped halfway down the lane one time! But she did do it all by herself!

Fun picture of the boys together.

We stopped for ice cream on the way home, which is always a fun treat for the kids.

The kids actually did really well going to bed and going to sleep. Of course they were up at the crack of dawn ready to go again.
Joe made a yummy breakfast of blueberry pancakes and bacon.

Joe made a monstrous fort in the living room after breakfast, which the kids loved. They took flashlights in there and took turns telling stories. We had to keep reminding the boys that, yes, the girls were allowed to be inside the fort!

I didn't get any pictures of the rest of the day, but we had fun doing the slip 'n slide outside, eating popsicles, and playing with trains.

The kids were asking when they could all sleep over again. :)
Having 4 kids ages 5,4,3 and 2 gave me a small glimpse of what my mother-in-law went through raising her kids! :)

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I had to capture this super cute picture. Joey and I were watching a Mickey cartoon on TV, which Kylah was not a fan of--who knows?--and Joe told her he would go in her room and have a tea party with her.
When I peaked in this is what I saw. Kylah was eating the attention up!

Another random picture: this is how we found Kylah last night when we went to check on her before we went to bed. (I used the flash, and it didn't even phase her.) We moved her back up into her bed, but she seemed pretty comfy on the floor! :)

You know you live in Arkansas when...

Two night ago we were getting the kids ready for bed.

I was in the bathroom with Kylah, and I had already told Joey to get his pull-up on for the night. He wasn't coming back into the bathroom to brush his teeth, so I told him again, "Joey, get your pull-up on and come into the bathroom."

Here is the response I heard from him, "I'm fixin' to do it, mommy."

What????

I head into Joey's room. "What did you just say Joey?"

Sure enough.

"I said I'm fixin' to do it."

"Where did you hear that phrase?" (As if it's a bad word or something.) :)

"Oh, my teachers at school say it."

Hmmm...we're going to have to really keep working on these kiddos of ours so they don't say things like 'fixin' and 'y'all' and things like that!! :)

She's a big girl! Step One.

We decided Kylah was ready for a big girl bed, so Thursday night Daddy and Joey got to work taking down Kylah's crib.

Kylah jumped right in to help too!

Joey was so excited to be a big boy and help daddy with his tools.

Joey and Kylah working together.

Kylah and I met Meredith for sno-cones, and when we got home, Kylah's bed was ready. Joey was so excited to show Kylah his work, and Kylah was so excited to jump in her bed. There were no whines about going to bed that night!

Kylah did awesome! We told her she needed to stay in her room, and go to sleep. About 5 minutes after we put her to bed, we heard a knock...from inside her door. Joe went to check it out, and put her back to bed. After that, she didn't get up again. She slept the whole night, and stayed in her bed until I came to get her the next morning. Nap time has been awesome too! She doesn't try to come out of her room, and she doesn't get up to play with toys. I guess she was old enough and ready for her big girl bed! She has been telling anyone that will listen that she is sleeping in her big girl bed now!

These pictures are fuzzy because I had to take them without the flash, but this is how she was sleeping the first night when we checked on her before we went to bed. (Head on the opposite side from her pillow!)

Don't worry, she's still got her fingers! :)

Getting Kylah out of her crib was step one. Kylah will stay in her room in her bedroom for a while. Sometime before the baby is born we will move Kylah into Joey's room so the baby can have her room. I'm sure Joey and Kylah will think it will be pretty cool to share a room! We are determined to make this little house work for us for a few years while we save money for a bigger house! :)